1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems, methods and computer programs for the storage, security, identification, authentication and retrieval of multimedia information using low-cost barcode or radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.
2. Related Art
In today's technological environment, electronic communications mechanisms can be classified as either Person-to-Person (P2P), Unidirectional, Annotated, Social, Bulletin Board or Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. This classification system is based on the type of participants in the communications and usage patterns.
The above-described mechanisms of electronic communications, while they allow for rapid on-line/electronic communications, all have one deficiency. That deficiency is that they do not allow themselves to be associated with a physical (i.e., real world, non-virtual) context. For example, it would be very valuable to attach a voice message to a (tangible) gift, whereby the recipient of the gift can then easily retrieve the message when receiving the gift. Current mechanisms of sending messages with a gift include a printed or written communication in the form of a short note or a greeting card. There is no “electronic” way to “attach” a message with the physical context. While certain “clumsy” mechanisms can be thought of—such as sending an audio tape or player with the gift or writing a note containing a URL where an electronic message may be downloaded—there is no simple and elegant way to exchange rich electronic messages that can be tied to physical world contexts.
The above example points to a need for contextual communications where electronic messages can be attached or affixed to physical, real-world objects. Thus, Applicants' co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/078,978 titled, “System And Method For Storing And Retrieving Multimedia Messages On Low-Cost Tags In Order To Facilitate Contextual Communications,” filed on Apr. 9, 2008 (the “978 Application”), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, disclosed systems, method and computer program products for the storing and retrieving of multimedia messages on low-cost tags, such as barcode and RFID tags, thereby facilitating contextual communications where such messages can be attached to physical, real-world objects.
The system disclosed in the '978 Application, with its Universally Unique Identifier—(UUID) based identifier printed on the tags, relies on a communications network to resolve what needs to be done when a tag is scanned by a mobile telephone equipped with appropriate software and sensors for reading and writing messages onto the tags. This implies having a relationship between the end user and the service provider of the contextual messaging software and, a priori, information about the application, UUID-based tag identifiers and configuration of meta data information and relationship between them on the network.
Given the foregoing, what are now needed are systems, methods and computer program products for storage, security, identification, authentication and retrieval of multimedia information using low-cost barcode or RFID tags as virtual storage mediums, whereby a subscription or accounting relationship between a service provider and an end user are not required, nor the provisioning of any information (i.e., meta data) about the tag in the network used for storage of multimedia data.